Sociology Views on Conception, Child Birth and Child Rearing

Sociology: Views on Conception, Child Birth and Child Rearing Introduction  Child rearing, childbirth and conception are all issues pertaining the nurturing of a child and every parent's dream is to have his or her child be brought up well and become a respected adult in future. However, how best to bring up a child varies and largely this is determined by societal beliefs and some other orientation. Such orientations include strong beliefs in God's help for everything. Such an orientation was found in Puritan, and helps us understand the contemporary American society or the white upper middle class society in America.The Puritan Society The puritan society was born when 1000 colonists sailed to America using seventeen boats/ships and build a world of their own and their place of settlement was turned into a city of service to lord dwellers. In this place, they could practice their culture and beliefs without any reference from any other society surrounding them, and perhaps provides a typical living of a poor person even though their values and strong orientation to God could be emulated by anyone who wants to live a life free of child corruptions and a society, which fears God.Comparison on Child Birth Childbirth in Puritan society was a sacred process and no layperson was supposed to interfere with it. In this society, people and specifically the expectant mother should pray so that the child to be born would please God. Even the woman to mid-wife should be the only one who is not corrupted by modern societal values or who strictly fears God. Puritan society was a society dedicated to God and everything was believed to belong to God. The child to be born is purified right from when it is in the womb and anytime the child would bounce in the womb, it was a sign of blessing for the child. Turning to the Native American society, child bearing is corrupted and to some extent, it may not happen. Hinkle (May 2002) contends with this argument by writing that there is no strong value attached to child birth and this comes only after the person has strongly made up the decision. According to Hinkle (May 2002), the crucial role of the mid-wives has been scrapped and replaced with medical doctors who do not understand whether a child needs to be nurtured in a Godly environment. Abortion in the middle class American society is a common practice and the child would only be lucky to be alive after the 9 months of pregnancy.Comparison on Conception The other theme coming out in the Puritan society is the issue of conception where, this was a Godly issue. To conceive means that God is about to bless you with a child and so the mother and the father to be for the child had to pray a lot for this child. Purely, the Puritan society was comprised of only the nuclear family and so the mother and father to be of the child devoted their full strength to development of this child in the womb. Before conceiving, the parents have to pray intensely and give thanks to God for giving them an opportunity to bring forth a child who is to belong to God. Again, the man and the woman viewed this as the act of God and so, they had to pray to God so that the whole process of bringing forth the child would please God. Coming to the contemporary society in America and especially the upper and middle class household, conception is a common issue and there is no strong attachment to God. However, certain practices concur in the two societies and these include the blessing before starting the process. For example, while the Puritans would pray individually for the blessing before starting a family, the contemporary American society would go to the church for a formal wedding where the crowd in the church would be the witness.Comparison on Child Rearing Perhaps this is the wide theme where there are strong differences and similarities in the contemporary American society and the Puritan society. In the Puritan society, the people emphasizes on strong biblical form of rearing the child. For example, if a child was to go astray, the two people namely the mother and the father were to blame for this and there were punishments associated with it. Children were regarded as a blessing and so they should be dedicated to God by taking them to church to learn biblical teaching. Infants were viewed as generally damned and so for them to learn, the parents had to bring in their teachings to him or her. They were to be taught how to read the bible at a very tender age and the forms of guidance were both physical and spiritual. According to Hinkle (May 2002), child rearing in the contemporary society is corrupted and so the child grows up being a corrupt one. The two societies concur in that the fathers and the mothers are at the center of bringing up the child. However, the intervention of the larger society is different, where in the Puritan society, the parents were the sole counselors to the child and the larger society was just to keep watch. In the contemporary middle class society, the society comes second after the mother and father but holds a significant percentage in the rearing of the child. The child can easily learn from the society and so if the society is corrupt, the child would also turn out to be a corrupted one. The Puritan child would be introduced to knowing the bible while the well brought up child in contemporary society would grow knowing how to read newspapers, magazines, novels and other forms of modern literature.State and Church Laws Even though this theme is not a strong factor in the rearing of the child, there is a major difference in the two analyzed societies. For example, in the Puritan society, the church and the state laws were drafted according to the biblical teaching and injunctions; for instance, a strong reference to Matthew 18: 15-17. Everybody is his or her brother's keeper and so the state laws did not have strongly to state each other action for a person going astray. Everything was dedicated to the service of the lord, and so even the state or political leaders had to adhere to the rules of the church and specifically the bible teachings. Even though there are references of upholding church doctrines in major state laws in the contemporary American society, the two operate as independent actors. The political leaders rarely refer to the bible teachings and injunctions in their operations and perhaps only during the swearing in and taking of oaths of obedience to God and asking for God's guidance in their work.Conclusion  This paper has analyzed and compared how two major societies namely the contemporary American society especially the one living in the upper class neighborhoods and the Puritan society differ or concur. The focus was on the child rearing, child birth and conception; however, the obedience of the state laws to the biblical teachings have been compared and differences notedReferences Hinkle C. (May 2002). "Child management in middle-class families in the early Twentieth century: Reconsidering fatherhood in a new context." Journal of University of California press/Centre for working families, working paper No. 42